Harmony, Notation, and Measure
The Organum of Hucbald--Use of combinations disagreeable
to modern ears--Appearance of rhythm--Work of Franco, of
Cologne--Establishment of Dual and Triple Measure--Introduction
of notes to represent sounds of different duration.
In the growth of modern music the second step was the introduction of
harmony. The simultaneous sounding of notes of different pitch in
combinations called chords is so essential a part of the music of to-day
that even the uneducated mind has difficulty in conceiving a tune as
wholly dissociated from the coloring influences of its harmony. Every
schoolboy is accustomed to hearing melodies with what he calls a "bass"
(an accompaniment founded on chords), and in the commonest music-hall
songs the familiar harmonies are the results of centuries of experiment
among the ecclesiastical fathers of modern music. It is difficult for us
to understand that there was a time when harmony was unknown to
musicians, but such is the case; and the first experiments resulted in
the use of combinations which sound intolerable to our ears, while some
of those which we regard as the most familiar and useful were deemed
unbearable by some of the early authorities. For example, no modern
chord can be formed without the third, _i.e._, the third whole note
above the key-note. In the key of C that is E; in G it is B, thus:--
[Music: Two Note Chord]
Yet for several centuries after harmony began to be employed that
particular combination was forbidden, so that it was impossible to write
the common chord of C major
[Music: Three Note Chord]
or of G major
[Music: Three Note Chord]
or of any other modern major key. The result was that for several
hundred years music developed along lines not those of chord harmony,
the first rude experiments at which early gave way to what is called
counterpoint. What that system was we shall see in good time, but we
must now give our attention to the early attempts at harmony.
The origin of modern harmony is wrapped in obscurity. It is believed
that the Greeks knew something about chords and perhaps used a few
simple ones in playing accompaniments on the lyre. But they made no
extended study of them, and the early fathers, who founded their system
on Greek music, had nothing to learn in this matter from the Greeks. All
steps in the development of modern music have been the result of long
processes of growth, and it cannot be doubted that many experiments in
harmony were made before the first treatise on the subject was written.
The first records of harmony are found in an old work called
"Enchiridion Musicæ," and they speak of a system called Organum or
Diaphony, attributed to Hucbald, a Benedictine monk of St. Armand, in
Flanders, near the close of the tenth century. Hucbald appears to have
studied Pythagoras's musical system, in which intervals between notes
were measured according to the laws of acoustics by the number of
vibrations made by each note in a second. Hucbald, finding that certain
intervals had a mathematical ratio, decided that they must make
concords, and he founded his system of harmony on that theory. He used
the intervals of the fourth, the fifth, and the octave. The fourth is
the fourth note of the major scale in ascending, the fifth the fifth
note, and the octave the eighth, or the recurrence of the key-note. To
make this matter clearer, let me state that modern scientists have
decided that the C below the staff, in the treble clef, has 256
vibrations a minute. The next C above has 512, just double. The F of
this scale, which is the fourth, has 384. This is the sum of the first C
increased by one-half of itself. Consequently C and F make a scientific
concord and a musical one, too. But there is hardly anything more
disagreeable to the modern ear than a series of consecutive fourths. Yet
Hucbald thought that such a series must be scientifically correct, and
that it ought, therefore, to make good music. So he wrote such harmonies
as these:--
[Music Series of Fourths: Sit glo-ri-a Do-mi-ni in sæ-cu-la.]
This is very unpleasant to modern ears, yet it is not quite so bad as a
series of fifths. When Hucbald wished to write in four parts he simply
repeated the two treble parts in the bass an octave lower. And when he
wrote in three parts he simply "doubled" the lower note of his fourth or
fifth in the octave above, which is a process also forbidden in modern
part writing because it makes two parts the same in melodic progression.
Hucbald also employed a form of harmony in which the lowest note always
remained the same. This was what we now call a "drone bass," such as is
heard in the bagpipe, and it was certainly more flexible than the other
kind because it admitted of the use of other intervals than the fourth
and fifth. But the idea of writing in more than one part, once having
appeared in music, developed itself gradually. All the earliest harmonic
combinations sound ugly to our ears because of the difference in the
character of the old scales adapted from Greek music for the Church and
that of our scale. If the harmonists of those early days had been using
our scale, no doubt they would have discovered how to write fine chords.
They did, in the course of time, hit upon some of the combinations now
used, and so the foundations of modern harmony were laid. But the modern
style of writing did not come into use for several centuries after
Hucbald's time.
The next element of music which made its appearance was rhythm. This
came about through the improvements in notation and the practice of
singers. It seems that after learning to add a second part to the
_cantus firmus_, or chant, the singers, who were acquiring considerable
dexterity in their art, began to ornament the additional part. This
addition of ornaments was called the art of descant, because it was
descanting upon a given theme. The singers all took to it with delight
because it gave them fine opportunities for the display of their voices
and of their musical skill. In some parts of France and the Netherlands
this practice became a sort of mania. The voice which carried the chant
was called the tenor, from the Latin _teneo_, "I hold." The other voice
added an ornamental part _above_ the chant, and as there was no measure
in music, the two parts seldom came out together at the end. As long as
the voices had moved in parallel fourths or fifths it was not difficult
for them to keep together, but with the descanter singing two or more
notes to every one of the _cantus firmus_ it was quite impossible for
them to do so. No one knows just when this art of descant entered into
music, but it is certain that it was known some time before the close of
the twelfth century, for it was about then that Franco, of Cologne, made
successful attempts to systematize notation, and in doing so regulated
the measure of music.
The earliest form of notation of which we have any knowledge is called
the Neume notation. These Neumes were much like Greek accents in some
respects, and in others resembled a sort of shorthand. All that could be
accomplished by them was an indication of the direction in which the
voice was to move, whether up or down, and of the number of notes which
it was to pass. In Hucbald's day a series of horizontal lines, like our
musical staff (but containing many more lines) was used. The names of
the notes were written opposite the ends of the spaces between the
lines, and then each syllable of the text was written in the space
belonging to the note to which it was to be sung. Short lines were drawn
upward or downward, as the case might be, between each syllable of one
part so that that part could be followed. Another system in use in
Hucbald's time, and even later, was arranged this way, the letters
representing the tones:--
[Music:
F
\
D E G E
/ \ \ \
C D F D
Lau-de dig-num ca-nat sanc-tum.]
As time passed on it became evident that there ought to be some way of
indicating a fixed pitch from which the notes were to start. So a line
was employed and the Neumes were written in a definite manner with
relation to it. If the line was red, the chant was in the key of F, and
all melodies ended on F. If the line was yellow, the key was C. In the
eleventh century both lines were used at the same time, and the
certainty of the meaning of the Neumes became greater. Afterward Guido,
of Arezzo, a famous teacher and theorist, who died in 1050, added two
more lines, and thus came into existence a four-line staff. The
character of the Neumes themselves had undergone many alterations,
until, in Guido's time, they began to look a little like modern notes.
But still there was no rhythm in the ecclesiastical music, and no way of
representing it in notation. Franco advocated the introduction of
measure into church music. He did not, of course, invent it, for it
already existed in the popular songs and dances of the people, and had
existed in them from the earliest times.
Franco was the first theorist to record the distinction between dual and
triple time. The reader who is unacquainted with musical science should
learn that the rhythms of music are like those of poetry. Instead of
poetic feet, music has "measures" separated by vertical lines drawn
through the staff, and called "bars." Measures are often called bars.
The musical measure corresponds to the poetic foot. A bar with two beats
in it is like a foot of two syllables, except that in music the accent
is normally always on the first beat. A bar with three beats is like a
dactyl, one accented and two unaccented syllables, or beats. Dual time,
or measure, corresponds to a poetic rhythm made up of two-syllable feet;
triple time to one of three-syllable feet. A polka is in dual time; a
waltz, in triple time. Franco first explained these points, and insisted
that triple ought to be used in church music for the naïve reason that
its three beats in one bar made it resemble the perfection of the Holy
Trinity, three persons in one God. He made many improvements in harmony,
among others recognizing the third, already described, as a concord,
though not a perfect one. Another important feature of Franco's teaching
was his advocacy of contrary motion of parts. The manner of writing
practised by Hucbald prescribed what is called parallel motion; that is,
the melody of the _cantus firmus_ and that of the descant always rose or
fell together. If the one ascended one interval the other did so, too.
Contrary motion permits the parts to move in opposite directions, and
this makes it possible to avoid such disagreeable arrangements as
consecutive fourths or fifths, and so leads the way to a richer and more
beautiful harmony. Others had already practised what Franco preached in
regard to this matter, so the most significant part of his work was that
which dealt with measure. In order to write the measured music it was
necessary to have notes representing sounds of different duration, and
these notes Franco either invented or adopted. Here are the four notes
which he used:--
[Music: Longa. Brevis. Maxima or Duplex Longa. Semibrevis.].
These names mean "long," "short," "double long," and "half short." The
short note had half the duration of the long, and the duplex longa
double it, while the semibrevis was half the length of the short note.
We still have notes called breve and semibreve.
We have now seen how melody, harmony, and rhythm entered the process of
development of modern music. But I have already called attention to the
fact that the early medieval composers had no conception of a tune
founded on subservient harmony, such as is now familiar to every one.
They got their ideas as to the plan of composition from the art of
descant, which consisted, as I have tried to explain, in adding an
ornamental part to a selected chant. It became an essential of music in
those early days that this second part should be melodious in itself.
When the early composers began to write in more than two parts, they
still preferred the style in which every part was a melody in itself. In
our modern music the parts which constitute the harmonic accompaniment
of a melody are not necessarily melodious in themselves, as any one can
easily see who listens to the accompaniment of a popular song. The early
church composers knew nothing about that kind of writing. They did not
have instrumental accompaniment at all. Even after the organ began to be
used, it simply played the same notes that the voices sang. The
compositions were written wholly for voices, and each voice part was a
melody in itself, and all sounding together produced harmonious results.
This kind of writing is still employed at times. For instance, in the
finale of "Die Meistersinger" overture, five different melodies are
heard at the same time. This method of composition is called
"polyphonic;" and we have now reached the period at which the art of
descant developed into the art of counterpoint, upon which polyphonic
writing rests.